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More charges are expected in a criminal investigation into influence-buying at the state legislature, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Tuesday — a day after WRAL first reported on a newly released search warrant highlighting questionable spending by a politically connected nonprofit group at strip clubs, beach vacation rentals and sports outings.
Four lobbyists active in the state legislature already face charges over separate trips Greater Carolina organized, with lobbyists and state lawmakers traveling together on tours to Kentucky bourbon distilleries. All have pleaded not guilty.
Freeman indicated she doesn’t expect more charges against those four. However, she said she does anticipate others will be charged soon. She declined to say who those charges could be against, citing the ongoing investigation.
An advocate for government ethics reform, Brooks Fuller of the group Common Cause North Carolina, believes it could include elected officials.
“If these allegations in these indictments are accurate, then I would not be surprised to see indictments against lawmakers not far behind,” Fuller said in an interview.
No elected officials are named in this new search warrant, but several were identified in past warrants connected to the Kentucky bourbon trail trips.
The new search warrant indicates specific spending by the Greater Carolina treasurer that is under the microscope. It includes:
· $15,128.80 spent at strip clubs in Clearwater, FL and North Myrtle Beach, SC
· $26,602.84 on a beach vacation rental on Emerald Isle
· $26,454 with the Carolina Panthers
· $10,981.14 at an Atlanta-area TopGolf
The Greater Carolina treasurer is also named in a past warrant with questionable spending, including:
· $7,920.12 on at least five trips to the Boca Raton Resort
· $7,660.58 at Giorgio Armani in Beverly Hills
· $4,079 at Carolina Men’s Clinic
Fuller says 501(C)(4) nonprofit organizations have very strict rules about what they can spend money on.
This newest search warrant says nonprofits, including Greater Carolina, are legally obligated to “further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community” because of their nonprofit status. The SBI agent in charge wrote, “there is probable cause to believe that information contained in the bank records… may be evidence of conduct and activities constituting the crime of obtaining property by false pretense by individuals associated with Greater Carolina, Inc.”
Greater Carolina's official purpose as a nonprofit was to support pro-business causes, one of the group's leaders told the SBI, an agent wrote in the warrant, and specifically to educate the public and members of the state legislature on sports betting.
The legislature voted in 2023 to legalize sports betting, and several tweaks to the law have been approved since then, including in the most recent state budget. Most of the trips detailed in the warrants happened in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
“What it’s showing you is that for a relatively paltry sum, you can get a pretty cozy relationship with lawmakers,” Fuller said. “Lawmakers who are going to have the votes in the General Assembly to get your policy preferences across the finish line.”
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